Six world powers attempt to break Iran nuclear impasse

Iran and six world powers today reportedly tried to break an impasse in nuclear negotiations, but officials have cautioned that attempts to reach a preliminary deal by a deadline in two days could yet fall apart.

According to Reuters, the two sides explored compromises in areas including numbers of centrifuges used to enrich uranium that Iran could operate, and its nuclear enrichment work for medical research.

But Israel, which feels especially threatened by the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, says the details of a possible framework agreement emerging from the talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne were even worse than it feared.

The six powers - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China - want at least a 10-year suspension of Iran's most sensitive nuclear work. Tehran, which denies it's trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability, is demanding an end to international sanctions that are crippling its economy